Intel Skates By in FTC Settlement (INTC, AMD, NVDA)

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) keeps getting around issues of its market dominance in the world of processors for PCs and servers against Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD).  The company settled with AMD for a sum that many felt was a better deal for Intel than AMD, but nonetheless it did settle.  Some antitrust suits are still outstanding, but this morning Intel announced that it has settled with the Federal Trade Commission in an antitrust suit filed last December.

The agreement is a tentative settlement after the FTC had sued Intel over alleged violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act. If this settlement is approved, Intel will not have to admit any violation of law nor that the facts alleged in the complaint were true.

Terms are subject to a 30-day public comment period and are also contingent upon final approval by the FTC.  The settlement agreement also names NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Via Technologies, Inc. as competitors of Intel covered under the agreement.

The full agreement has the terms of the settlement, but most of the agreement terms seem to note that reimbursements are limited at $10 million as a total obligation by Intel.  The rest of the settlement pertains to keeping Intel from deliberately trying to keep rival chips from going into PCs and to prevent PC makers from marketing PCs without Intel chips inside.

The E.U. settlement in 2009 was about $1.45 billion and the AMD settlement was about $1.25 billion.  This is more of a business practice settlement rather than a financial settlement.  Frankly, it may even be as little as a non-event.

Intel shares are down 0.5% at $20.61, while AMD shares are down 0.4% at $7.48 and NVIDIA shares are trading up over 1% at $9.05.

JON C. OGG